Victory!

I am in the process of decorating/redecorating our bedroom and making sense of all the crap, I mean stuff we own. I am attempting to replace all our odds and ends with a somewhat cohesive look. It's quite the process as I have put myself on a very tight budget forcing me to be super creative. My goal is to sell the pieces we have before purchasing new ones. Which leads me to the topic of this post...

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I posted and sold my very first item on Craig's list this weekend! The purchasing of this item was also quite victorious to me as it was one of the first two grown up items I purchased as an SIW*.

The other was a brand new Queen sized bed.

p.s. I got both of these items home and put together all by myself.

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Goodbye, IKEA Expedit Bookshelf... Hello growner upper furniture!

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*SIW [Strong Independent Woman] is a term Eric used when he was trying to get my friends Amanda, Maria and I to figure things out on our own when he was our employer. "Figure it out" was also one of his favorites. Good times.

Birthday Extravaganza!

My mom threw me a safari themed birthday party when I was young and I remember it being amazing. Apparantly, some big animal cutouts and safari hats go a long way when you're 7 or 8. Since then, I can't remember a lovelier birthday! Everything went right on April 22nd this year. I woke up and had a gorgeous sunny drive to work (granted it's only a 3 minute drive, but it was lovely!) and a few hours into my work day my coworkers and I had a fun little celebration with yummy cake and party hats. When I got home Eric started preparing for our MexiFest Celebration. I have to share the invite email he sent out, because it really adds to the mood of the party.

HEY ALL, Lauren's birthday is Tuesday - TOMORROW, April 22nd. Yes, another person with an April birthday... (I think the 4th of July leads to lots of people gettin' naked...)

Anyway, being that we are most likely the ONLY MEXICANS that you know, we have decided to have a little Mexi-fest, in honor of Lauren's first birthday as an 'official mexican'. Tomorrow night from 7pm until we're done... I will be making some excellent Mexican foods. (Carne asada, chicken, homemade tortillas, guacamole...)

And we may play some "mexi-games as well" like:

-a standard pinata'

-guess who's the drug mule' (I still need 2 more volunteers...)

-"cross the border" (a game of skill and strategy)

-how many pesos is that worth?

-pimp my el camino

-whats in the moustache?

-dirty sanchez... (...not really a game but who cares.)

-7 minutes in heaven with ryan carlson. (he asked me to make it mandatory that all of the single girls attending play this.) but you don't have to...

Let me know if you can make it, so I can try to plan for food. GRACIAS! If you are trying to

come up with a good gift idea... perhaps a live chicken, a fair poncho, or some chiclets we can have PJ sell around Bellevue Square, or some social security numbers for us... As for the late notice - what do you expect? We are freaking mexicans for crying out loud... we barely speak the language. see you tomorrow.

Don't worry, he got mustaches for everyone to wear. He certainly does keep me laughing! Plus he can frikkin cook! We had a great meal and he made me the raddest cake ever! (With his signature handemade fondant-he loves to show me up) I Love you Eric! Thanks for making my birthday so spectacular!

Oh, yeah, I got a bedazzler...AWESOME!

Our crazy friend Rob stopped at the party store on the way to the shindig and decided to use their restroom to transform himself into a spaniard...or something. P.s. He is completely caucasion

How it came to be

Eric and I have started to form our own language. Apparantely there aren't enough words in the English language and we have discovered the need to make up some new ones.

Mer.

Anyone that has seen the SNL sketch Debbie Downer knows the little ditty that plays after her ever-so-pleasant input on the conversation. Wah Wah. We started using it whenever something went wrong. From there it became less of a cohesive phrase and more of just a noise that isn't really describable with words. It has been revised many times and finally molded into the term we now use anytime we are annoyed or bummed; usually in a joking manner, but I won't lie, I have been known to shout it in anger a couple of times. Oopsy daisy.

The best part is that we've heard PJ and Krista both use it by accident. Suckers.

Ashley's Special Day

Wendy, Tony, Ryan, PJ, Eric, Lauren, Alexander, Ashley

on thursday evening we all convened to celebrate ashley's 35th birthday at one of his favorite restaurants.
happy birthday, ash-a-ley!
don't worry, i adopted a little foreign baby real quick...
pj's favorite prank is bunny ears. it hasn't gotten old yet...i promise

Mer!

Another evening sucked away in bloggerville. This has really got to stop. I couldn't end the night before sharing my discoveries, though, so get this! My blog-stalking has finally gotten me somewhere. Usually I just find myself reading about people I don't know and usually don't end up caring about. BUT! Tonight I was reading Jenica's blog and saw she had a link to someone I thought I knew so off I went to see who it was. Turns out I don't know her, BUT, she has a link to someone I DO know. Linlee Halverson (Hutchinson)! Not only does Linlee have a blog, but so does Sheree and Trevor, our long lost Halverson cousins. What a small world. I had no idea blogging would reconnect me with so many people. Did I mention how much I love technology? And as a bonus, I feel like slightly less of a weirdo as my stalking efforts have finally come to fruition.

Well, kuddos to me. Goodnight...

A Blogging Kind Of Day

Since I have started this whole blogging situation, I am constantly thinking up things to blog about. Whether or not they interesting to others is questionable, but I guess I shouldn't let that stop me, right? Up until now, I have felt like I need a picture, or some sort of visual to entertain and make my posts interesting. HOWEVER! I just discovered Miss Kitti's blog and everything has changed! I had a list of thing to do tonight and not one of them got done because I got sucked into reading Kitti's blog and I can't pull myself away. It's great! There aren't very many pictures and it's OK! It's just a really fun read and I would like to dedicate this post to her and thank her for the inspiration!

I would also like to share my excitement about Brian and Megan's blog, and also Jenica and Tyler's blog. It's a phenomenon!

p.s. I've been saving up for a big screen computer monitor and finally bought it tonight. It's wonderful! I really love technology. Really, a lot.

Date Night

Once a week PJ spends the night at his mom's house. Usually it's Friday night, which is nice, because we try and go out to a fun restaurant or go hear music and it's a great ending to the week. This week we decided to venture into Seattle; something we keep saying we're going to do more. We tend to get lazy and stay in our little "Bellevue Bubble."

[Randomd Tangent: It's actually kind of gross when I stop and think about it, so I ususally don't. Work, church, grocery store, mall, movie theater, restaurants, bank, gym are all within a 2 block radius of where we live. While I really enjoy the money I save on gas I sometimes feel like a gerbil trapped in a little cage.]

So we decided on a swank little restaurant inside the W Hotel downtown. Yummy! My steak was delicious. Well, until I bit into a big bite of grissle. Ugh. The laundry service is going to find a little treasure inside my cloth napkin. I just couldn't get myself to swallow it.

Overall, a great meal. Then we headed back to the Eastside and caught the movie 21. I am becoming a big fan of Jim Sturgess. He was great in Across the Universe and really good in this movie. I'd give it 3 stars.

All in all, a lovely evening out!